martes, julio 31, 2012

Tito Kayak in St Martin

July 31st, 2012 - For a second day, Alberto De Jesus (Tito
Kayak) remains on the small Caribbean island of St Martin, awaiting for a
change in the weather and the arrival of an escort ship in order to
continue rowing to Puerto Rico. The international quest in support of
the effort to bring about the release of U.S.-Held Political Prisoner,
Puerto Rican patriot Oscar Lopez-Rivera, began on June 21st from the
Paria peninsula in Venezuela where Tito began rowing, following the path
of the ancestral Arawak people who first populated the Caribbean
archipelago centuries ago.

Lopez-Rivera has served 31 years in th U.S. prison system,
convicted of "seditious conspiracy", for fighting for the liberation of
his homeland. A native of the mountain town of San Sebastian, Puerto
Rico, Oscar Lopez Rivera, a Vietnam veteran who was decorated by the
U.S. military for his wartime service, became an activist on behalf of
Puerto Rican rights in the U.S. and for the independence of Puerto Rico
upon his return from South East Asia in the streets of Chicago. Arrested
in 1981 following 5 years in clandestinity, Oscar is today the Puerto
Rican who has served the longest prison sentence in the struggle for his
country's independence since the US invasion 114 years ago. Two other
Puerto Rican freedom fighters, the brothers Avelino and Norberto
Gonzalez-Claudio, are also in U.S. prisons.

Tito Kayak, an internationally known grassroots environmentalist,
human rights activist and daredevil, now awaits the passing of rough
weather in order for the 38-foot sailboat Breeze, carrying the
support, logistics and security support committee coordinator Elisa
Sanchez, and sociologist and cultural researcher Pluma Barbara, to
depart to the colonially divided (French in the north and Dutch in the
south) island of St Martin. The Breeze is presently on the coast
of the island of Tortola, waiting to sail on to St martin when the
weather permits. The vessel will begin escort duties for the remaining
1/3 of this international grassroots effort for the release of
Lopez-Rivera from there, in a northern and then western direction
through the Anegada passage, one of the most dangerous parts of this
kayaking journey due to the strong cross currents where the Caribbean
sea and the Atlantic ocean meet.
Furthermore, local fishermen have warned Tito that they have noticed
unusually aggressive shark activity on the way to Anegada.

Tito Kayak will then row first to the British and then U.S. Virgin
islands and then on to the Puerto Rican island municipalities of Culebra
and Vieques, where a welcoming committee awaits his arrival. He is
expected to arrive in his kayak at the beach encampment of Amigos Del
Mar in isla Verde, Carolina, at some point next week, weather
permitting.

Carmelo at the Foro de Sao Paulo meeting in Venezuela

Latin America Moves Left and Forward

by CARMELO RUIZ-MARRERO

The Foro de Sao Paulo (FSP), a forum that brings together most of the Latin American left, had its 18th
meeting in the Venezuelan city of Caracas on July 4-6. In attendance
were representatives of practically all of the Foro’s member
organizations, including El Salvador’s FMLN, Nicaragua’s Sandinistas,
Guatemala’s URNG (all three of them former guerrilla groups), the Cuban
Communist Party, Ecuador’s Alianza PAIS, Uruguay’s Frente Amplio,
Bolivia’s Movement Toward Socialism and the Puerto Rico Socialist Front,
as well as leftist and socialist political parties from countries like
Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Barbados and
Argentina.

The host country’s left pulled out all stops in
helping to organize the event. Countless youth volunteers of the ruling
party- president Hugo Chavez’s PSUV- looked after every detail of
logistics and protocol, and the local communist party, the PCV, was also
out in force. There was also a substantial number of observers and
dignitaries from other parts of the world, including Russia, China,
Vietnam, Saharaui, Lebanon, Palestine, France, Spain and Greece. VIP’s
included Nobel laureate Rigoberta Menchú from Guatemala, and writers
Ignacio Ramonet and Atilio Boron, who sat in places of honor near
president Chavez at the closing activity.

******

The FSP is definitely not to be confused with the World
Social Forum, which also began in Brazil. Whereas the Social Fora are
non-partisan, the Foro de Sao Paulo is openly, brazenly and proudly
partisan and leftist. The terms of debate and discussion at the FSP are
far to the left of what most American progressives would be willing to
consider. In it there is open talk of class struggle, anti-imperialism,
wealth redistribution, and yes, the dreaded “s” word, socialism.
Socialism is indeed becoming an increasingly mainstream proposition all
over the world- except in the USA, where the word is still used as an
insult.

viernes, julio 27, 2012

The 'Nuclear Shadow' Of Rocky Flats

Under The 'Nuclear Shadow' Of Colorado's Rocky Flats

Kristen Iversen spent years in Europe looking
for things to write about before realizing that biggest story she'd ever
cover was in the backyard where she grew up. Iversen spent her
childhood in Colorado close to the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons factory,
playing in fields and swimming in lakes and streams that it now appears
were contaminated with plutonium. Later, as a single mother, Iversen
worked at the plant but knew little of its environmental and health
risks until she saw a feature about it on Nightline.Iversen's new book, Full Body Burden: Growing up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats, is
in part a memoir about her troubled family, and also an investigation
into the decades-long environmental scandal involving nuclear
contamination in and around Rocky Flats. Weapons production ended there
after FBI agents raided the plant in 1989. Its operators later pleaded
guilty to criminal violations of environmental law.But
during Iversen's childhood, the people living near Rocky Flats had no
idea that plutonium bomb components were being constructed so close to
their homes — or that radioactive waste was leaking into the surrounding
environment. The plant's day-to-day activities were highly secretive.
So secretive, in fact, that Iversen's family didn't know what their
neighbors who worked at the plant did for a living."The
rumor in the neighborhood was that they were making cleaning supplies,"
says Iversen. "My mother thought they were making Scrubbing Bubbles."Instead,
the plant was manufacturing balls of plutonium that were integral to
creating nuclear chain reactions. Workers at the plant manipulated
plutonium using lead-lined gloves that were attached to stainless steel
boxes. The plutonium was then shipped to a facility in Texas, where it
was encased in conventional explosives and made into bombs.Iversen notes that plutonium, which contains alpha particles, is extremely dangerous to humans if ingested or inhaled."If
it is inhaled into the lungs — and very, very tiny particles can be
inhaled into the lungs — it can lodge in lung tissue and it creates a
constant and ongoing source of radiation," says Iversen. "So that's
where we see lung cancer and various other health effects."

courtesy of the authorKristen
Iversen is director of the M.F.A. program in creative writing at the
University of Memphis and editor-in-chief of the literary journal The Pinch.

Sigourney Weaver in NPR's Fresh Air

Sigourney Weaver's Stately Role In 'Political Animals'

Andrew Eccles/USA NetworkSigourney Weaver stars as Secretary of State Elaine Barrish in the USA Network miniseries Political Animals.

July 19, 2012

In the new USA Network miniseries Political Animals,
Sigourney Weaver plays smart, tough Secretary of State Elaine Barrish.
It's a role many critics have likened to current Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton, but Weaver says the show's creators were thinking
beyond Clinton when they devised the role."We've
had three remarkable women who've been our secretaries of state in our
last three administrations, but somehow we're not willing as a country
to elect a woman president," she says. "And I think this show partially
investigates what that's about."In the
series, Weaver's character accepts the president's invitation to become
secretary of state after she loses the race for her party's presidential
nomination. She also divorces her husband, a former president who had
some serious run-ins with infidelity."It about someone evolving, starting a new life, someone evolving and going for broke on her own," Weaver tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies."She's got it together. And I think that's a big part of what our story tells."It's another strong female role for Weaver, who has starred in films like Alien, Ghostbusters and Gorillas in the Mist. But there's one big difference, she says."Elaine
is more in the mainstream, where most of the women I've played are on
the edge," she says. "They're in space or they're in the mountains with
the gorillas — there's something about them that's a bit off — whereas
Elaine was sort of like a Girl Scout who grew up wanting to be
president. ... I've never quite played a person like this. She's very
solid."

Monsanto in trouble in Brazil

Monsanto, the largest seed corporation in the world, has long dealt out
severe legal sanctions against farmers it suspects of "pirating" its
seed. Now farmers in Brazil have turned the tables on the company which
may have to pay out $7.5 billion.

Alexander Cockburn, RIP

Farewell, Alex, My Friend

by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR

COUNTERPUNCH Weekend Edition July 21-23, 2012

Our friend and comrade
Alexander Cockburn died last night in Germany, after a fierce two-year
long battle against cancer. His daughter Daisy was at his bedside.Alex kept his illness a tightly guarded secret. Only a
handful of us knew how terribly sick he truly was. He didn’t want the
disease to define him. He didn’t want his friends and readers to shower
him with sympathy. He didn’t want to blog his own death as Christopher
Hitchens had done. Alex wanted to keep living his life right to the end.
He wanted to live on his terms. And he wanted to continue writing
through it all, just as his brilliant father, the novelist and
journalist Claud Cockburn had done. And so he did. His body was
deteriorating, but his prose remained as sharp, lucid and deadly as
ever.In one of Alex’s last emails to me, he patted himself
on the back (and deservedly so) for having only missed one column
through his incredibly debilitating and painful last few months. Amid
the chemo and blood transfusions and painkillers, Alex turned out not
only columns for CounterPunch and The Nation and First Post, but he also wrote a small book called Guillotine and finished his memoirs, A Colossal Wreck, both of which CounterPunch plans to publish over the course of the next year.Alex lived a huge life and he lived it his way. He
hated compromise in politics and he didn’t tolerate it in his own life.
Alex was my pal, my mentor, my comrade. We joked, gossiped, argued and
worked together nearly every day for the last twenty years. He leaves a
huge void in our lives. But he taught at least two generations how to
think, how to look at the world, how to live a life of joyful and
creative resistance. So, the struggle continues and we’re going to
remain engaged. He wouldn’t have it any other way.In the coming days and weeks, CounterPunch will
publish many tributes to Alex from his friends and colleagues. But for
this day, let us remember him through a few images taken by our friend
Tao Ruspoli.

"It suits my style," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "I like writing about heroes [who] don't wear capes or disguises. You feel like, 'Gee, this looks like the real world and feels like the real world — why can't that be the real world?' "

In Sorkin's latest fictional world, Jeff Daniels stars as anchorman Will McAvoy, who tackles hard-hitting news stories and calls out those who don't tell the truth. The show follows McAvoy but also pays close attention to the bookers, producers and editors who work behind the scenes to get their nightly broadcast ready for air.

Aaron Sorkin's work includes A Few Good Men, The American President, The West Wing, Sports Night, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Charlie Wilson's War and The Social Network.

Before writing the show, Sorkin spent two days on the set of Countdown with Keith Olbermannto get a sense of how a newsroom works. While there, he observed producers getting ready to cover the April 2010 Deepwater Horizonexplosion and got an idea for his own show.

"I realized I could set the show in the recent past," he says. "My big worry was making up the news — writing fictional news — because it was just going to take us too far away from reality. ... But [setting the show in the recent past] became the gift that kept on giving. Because you have the fun of the audience knowing more than the characters. ... I know that this device has bothered some people who think that I'm leveraging hindsight into a way to make my characters stronger. That wasn't the idea."

Reaction to the show has been polarized. Some TV critics have loved the show, while others have said it's sermonizing.

"I think that the critics and the audience who are reacting as hostilely to the show as they are, part of the reason is because they think that I'm showing off an intellect and an erudition that I don't have," says Sorkin. "I'm not pretending to have it. I know that I don't have it. I phonetically create the sound of smart people talking to each other. I'm not one of them.